Photography.

Picture Perfect Places

Focus On The Nearby Hot Spots With Your Camera Eye

If travel photographs of buffalo, waterfalls, a steam locomotive or a riverboat sound appealing, then the place to travel this summer is northern Illinois.

Northern Illinois? Yes. Visits to these photographic hot spots in your own back yard can double as one-day family excursions. Most can be equally satisfying to photograph whether you use a point-and-shoot camera or a sophisticated SLR. What really counts is to load up with lots of imagination as well as film.

"Try different ways of looking at things. Put the camera on the ground and shoot upward," says Gary Irving, a freelance landscape photographer who is photographing the Great Lakes region for a forthcoming Smithsonian book series on natural America.

Karina Wang, who photographs her own line of upscale postcards, recommends getting your camera in place at dawn in readiness to capture a magical Chicago in the copper light of sunrise: 5:30-something these days.

"You want to be on location a half-hour early to set up. The best shots are right when the sun peeks over the horizon. In 10 or 15 minutes it's gone," says Wang, whose book, "Chicago: A Pictorial Visit," has just been updated.

Irving and Wang offer other tips for photographing the scenery, the architecture and the cityscapes included in our suggestions for summer photo field trips. How-to books at the library can fill in the basics for landscape, nighttime or closeup photography. And browsing through photo books of works by the grand masters can add a free stock of inspiration.

Don't forget to check your camera manual for specialty features. Some cameras can be set to click off a continuous sequence of frames, a handy option for action shots involving kids or wildlife. Some cameras offer automatic bracketing, helpful at dawn or dusk when the light is changing rapidly and in the dappled mix of sunlight and shade.

The Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau (312-567-8500) and the Illinois Bureau of Tourism (312-814-4732) offer free visitors guides to add to this list of photographic holidays close to home.

- Montrose Harbor, Montrose Avenue at Lake Michigan. The coil of land fencing in the harbor offers one of the city's most dramatic skyline panoramas. Photographers, tourists and lovers prize the nighttime lightscape of the skyscrapers. That view is matched only by the early morning vista where a city of copper and gold appears to rise from the lake. A tripod is a must at night, because exposure times can run several seconds depending on the speed of the film. Try several shots at the growing light levels of sunrise.

- Sears Tower Skydeck, 233 S. Wacker Drive (enter at Jackson Boulevard). The skydeck of the world's tallest building offers an inexpensive "aerial" view of the city. People are always asking if you can get good pictures through the glass, Wang says. "The shots come out crystal clear because you focus on infinity." The one thing to avoid is reflections on the glass from lights inside the skydeck. While popular wisdom reserves observation decks for clear, sunny days, an overcast day can be parlayed into atmospheric photographs of skycrapers jutting through clouds. Hours: 9 a.m.-11 p.m. through September. Admission charge. 312-875-9696.

- Illinois Railway Museum, Union. You have to travel just over 60 miles northwest of the Loop these days to hop a Chicago streetcar. Streetcars, trolleys and vintage Rock Island commuter cars run once again on the museum's outdoor railways. Save some film for when the steam engine roars in, wrapped in a curtain of smoke and steeped in American mythology. Irving recommends going for closeups and details at the museum rather than trying to pull in a whole car. "The lettering or numbering is often interesting," he says. "Put your child next to one of the wheels to get a sense of scale." Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays. Admission charge. 815-923-2488.

- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia Road, Batavia. A herd of buffalo roam within view of futuristic Wilson Hall, the administrative building for a laboratory that houses a massive atom smasher. You can begin a self-guided tour on the 15th floor of the administration building and get an overview of the grounds, a good photograph in itself. Physicists from around the world gather to unravel the secrets of the universe at a laboratory that remains an ecological haven for wildlife and prairie plants. To ensure that the whole scene of the buffalo and Wilson Hall is in sharp focus, set the camera on higher f-stops, increasing depth of field. Hours: Grounds are open year-round during daylight hours. Wilson Hall is open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. 708-840-3351.